BBC1 to curb prime-time swear words
Clampdown on F-words to promote family viewing after report into Ross affair
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A BBC study will attempt to draw a line under the scandal caused last October by the foul-mouthed behaviour of Jonathon Ross (above) and Russel Brand
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The BBC yesterday pledged to ban "malicious intrusion, intimidation and humiliation" from its entertainment programmes as part of a review of its editorial standards in the wake of the "Sachsgate" scandal involving Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand.
A 79-page BBC report into the use of strong language, sexual content and the behaviour of its presenters also called for the tightening of controls on the use of swearing on BBC1 between 9pm and 10pm to ensure that the corporation's flagship channel retained its ability to bring families together.
The study, which the BBC said was the "most exhaustive" piece of audience research it has undertaken on taste and standards, will attempt to draw a line under the scandal caused last October by the obscene answering machine messages left for the Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs by Brand and Ross which were broadcast on BBC Radio 2.
The messages about Brand's sexual relationship with Sachs's granddaughter initially passed largely unnoticed but an article on the programme by a Sunday newspaper sparked 44,790 complaints to the BBC and a crisis of confidence in the corporation's higher echelons. In April this year, Ofcom fined the Beeb a record £150,000 for infringing decency rules.
The report, entitled Taste, Standards and the BBC, and written by the corporation's creative director Alan Yentob, acknowledged heavy criticism of the failure by producers to prevent the broadcast, saying that any similar "unacceptable" behaviour would be the subject of a comprehensive ban.
Calling for new guidance on the issue, the document said: "BBC programmes must never condone malicious intrusion, intimidation and humiliation. While they are all aspects of human behaviour which may need to be depicted, described or discussed across the BBC's factual and non-factual output, they must never be celebrated for the purposes of entertainment."
The conclusions of the report, which includes the results of interviews with 2,700 viewers, will form the basis for new editorial guidelines submitted next month to the BBC Trust, the corporation's governing body, ahead of their implementation by early next summer.
Despite widespread dissatisfaction with light reality shows such as Big Brother and concern at gratuitous swearing by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, a Mori survey found that 68 per cent of Britons were satisfied with the standards used in making television. BBC1 remained the most trusted of the terrestrial television channels with 61 per cent saying it had "high standards", compared to 31 per cent for ITV1 and 11 per cent for Five.
The study found that 33 per cent of people were worried about the use of strong language on television and a clearer policy was therefore needed on the bleeping of strong language and warning audiences of graphic content in programmes. The report said the BBC needed to "always recognise that some sections of its audiences are more readily offended than others".
The corporation said it recognised the "particular offence" that can be caused by the use of the "c-word" in programmes and every instance of its use on television had to be personally signed off by Jana Bennett, the director of BBC Vision.
The BBC Trust said it was particularly concerned that highly offensive language should be used on BBC1 only after the 9pm to 10pm watershed and expected an undertaking to that effect in the report to feature in the new guidelines.
David Liddiment, a trust member, said: "Ensuring audiences aren't exposed to unnecessarily offensive content, while guarding against stifling creativity, is a balancing act."
On the box: Viewing habits
56% don't want to watch reality TV shows such as Big Brother or I'm a Celebrity...
74% of those aged 75 or over have found something on TV offensive.
62% say that swearing is acceptable on TV because it reflects modern speech.
71% have a television in their bedroom.
55% watch TV until 10pm or beyond on a weekday.
13% first heard a swear word that they use on TV.
35% believe that avoiding offence is more important than freedom of speech.
48% disagree that the BBC should not be afraid to show offensive material.
60% believe that performers who swear lack respect for the audience.
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Comments
How will they prove they are with it if they can't dish sex like a 14-year-old?
How will they prove they are one of the us envious if they can't gratuitously insult the tall poppies?
The BBC is supposed to be for everyone. For that to be the case those in charge must do what THEY feel is the right thing, asking the public gives you nothing.
The people in charge clearly have no clue and resort to "studies" so they don't have to make decisions.
It just shows what pathetic wretches run the BBC nowadays.
The only good thing is that it hastens the end of the current BBC administration, the BBC is gradually turning into unwatchable mush. It is the broadcasting equivalent of New Labour.
Hopefully a proper public service will eventually emerge.
What is swearing exactly? It is the use of certain words that have been deemed 'swear' words by other people who don't like 'swear' words. These people are called anti-swearites and it is they who create or maintain the concept of swearing. Without anti-swearites, the notion of 'swear' words would disappear. The word 'damned' used to be considered a 'swear' word but today's anti-swearites would probably not be offended by it which shows the randomness of their obsession.
Let's look at an example: Joe Blogs says to his mate, 'These MPs are all fucking corrupt!' In this sentence, the word 'fucking' acts as an adverb modifying the adjective 'corrupt' - and adds additional information, i.e, that the speaker is angry with this fact. Another example, Joe says, 'It's fucking cold out there.' Here, 'fucking' is again an adverb modifying the adjective 'cold' - it imparts the additional information that it is very cold and implies the speaking is not chuffed by this.
'Swearing', when analysed using the tools of the science of linguistics, is simply a part of common speech and occurs in almost all languages. 'Swearing' can also be used to give further information about the speaker indicating class, level of formality, sense of humour, etc.
Anti-swearites are a those who keep a mental list of words that offend them and then proceed to feel offended whenever they hear them. If they got together and announced that fuck, shag, wank, etc were no longer swear words they would have noting to be offended about. Anti-swearites should applaud swearing on TV as it is the fastest way to regularise those words. In a generation 'fuck' will be seen as no more offensive as 'damned' but by them the antiswearites will sure have added some newly minted expressions to their list and so the process will continue. Personally, I think anti-swearites are a linguistically ignorant bunch of cuffing funts who should shuck the fuddup and scuff off.
Clearly Television drama has to base its language content on the language real people use simply to be credible. A drama about cops, miners or urban youth without their ripe vocab would be preposterous. Finally, here's a teaser for you; how do you feel about the words 'Nazi', 'torture', 'corrupt politician'? Do they, in themselves, offend you? If the word 'shit' meaning 'not good' offends you, I can only imagine what a word like 'Nazi' must do to your sensibilities.
Scientific proposition: If you asked British anti-swearites which words they find offensive, they will all have the same list of four or five words. How can that be? Thousands of people have all independently decided that five out of a million words are to be 'swear' words? This is nonsense - they have all been told which words are 'swear' words since the chance of them all chancing upon the same ones are negligible. Disliking 'swear' words is a programmed response, usually instilled by parents, teachers, etc. They do so in the misguided belief that they are stamping out 'swearing' but they are actually creating swearing by maintaining the power of these four or five taboo words.
I repeat, I am not promoting offending people, but merely hope to educate anti-swearites that they are the ones who sustain the phenomenon of swearing and those of us who 'swear' do not since we fail to recognise the taboo in the first place.
Analyses of swearing by class reveals that the working class do it habitually, the educated do it selectively and the upper-class do it brazenly - only the aspirational lower-middle class are anti-swearites, apparently because they believe that not swearing makes them appear to belong to a higher socio-economic group than they actually occupy in the mistaken belief that the upper social strata do not swear - something they would find absolutely fucking hilarious, dahling.
You seem a bit chuffed that you have 'rattled my cage' which is what you have accused people who swear of doing to anti-swearites. Consistency is a virtue.
I am sure your parents would be happy to be called ?aspirational?, but the term 'lower-middle class trying to be a higher social class' is your interpretation/labelling of their behaviour because they don?t like you swearing and you believe you have a higher intellect that permits you to swear how you like to express your emotion. Give them a break, they are not as silly as you are making them out to be. By the way I would not knowingly swear in Spanish in front of a Spaniard, because (and you consistently miss the point here), they might find it offensive. It is all to do with adjusting your code of speaking and choice of words to communicate most effectively with your audience - it is clear that your mates admire this type of behaviour. By the way in which 'class' would you place yourself?
I think you need read a wider range of books on linguists and psycholinguistics to get the point.